DeSantis already a target as Hurricane Ian hits
by Joe Concha, Opinion Contributor - 09/29/22 9:30 AM ET
As a catastrophic Category 5 hurricane slams into Florida’s West Coast, many Floridians may lose everything — homes, businesses, perhaps even their lives if they couldn’t evacuate in time.
It’s a serious moment demanding serious journalism, and, across the dial and in the pages of major newspapers throughout the country, serious reporting without opinion or finger-pointing is exactly what’s happening. But this also is an election year that includes Florida’s race between incumbent Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and former Republican governor-turned-Democratic congressman Charlie Crist (D).
DeSantis is widely seen as the biggest rival to former President Trump for the Republicans’ 2024 presidential nomination. Some state polls even show DeSantis tied with or beating Trump in battleground states such as Florida, New Hampshire and Michigan.
As a result, we already see more than a few political pundits talking about what a danger DeSantis, a decorated military veteran, is to the country and democracy.
“Trump poses a greater danger of triggering an immediate constitutional crisis, while DeSantis is more likely to methodically strangle democracy through a series of illiberal Orbanist steps like he has modeled in Florida,” writes New York Magazine’s Jonathan Chait.
“The fact that Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, is favored to win reelection is a clear warning to those worried about declining support for democratic institutions and values in the United States,” says the New York Times’s Thomas Edsall. “The prospect of DeSantis’s reelection in November suggests that under certain circumstances the American electorate will tolerate, if not actively embrace, the abuse of traditional political norms by domineering leaders.”
You get the point. To some, DeSantis needs to be stopped.
The utter dishonesty of the coverage earlier this year of his Parental Rights in Education Bill was underscored by news organization after news organization calling it the “Don’t Say Gay” bill in headline after headline.
So it’s no surprise that some in traditional media are trying to turn Hurricane Ian into DeSantis’s Hurricane Katrina, or using the opportunity to take ad hominem political shots.
more
https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/3666027-desantis-already-a-target-as-hurricane-ian-hits/
